Her Mouth Looked Like a Cat’s Bum

Her Mouth Looked Like a Cat’s Bum
Matthew Ward
World Audience, Inc.
ISBN: 1934209201
Fiction, Short Stories
Reviewed by Mona Lisa Safai

Matthew Ward writes a unique collection of twenty-one short stories entitled Her Mouth Looked like a Cat’s Bum. Each story includes wit, laughter, and irony with a proper dash of Australian texture. The collection is an original mixture of situational circumstances that have somehow gone awry. Ward eloquently, but realistically explores these scenarios leaving his readers curious until the end.
To say his characters are living content lives would be understating many of his characters. Ward intentionally places his characters in unusual circumstances. In Bathrobes, Ward sets his story at a lesbian wedding. The bride attempts to commit bigamy but fails. His main characters (two attending guests) reach a painful point of self awareness. In Take Your Revenge!, Ward depicts a school teacher’s longstanding personal trauma and a boy’s classroom spite turning it into a witch hunt. The story’s theme of sweet irony and ironic justice plays heavily on the reader’s conscience.
Many common threads are loss, irony, revenge, and humor. Ward uses his aptitude of dialogue and relates well to his audience. His quirky sense of the ordinary evolves his tales into the extraordinary. The very obstacles, fears, and taboos Ward gravitates toward make his writing an intriguing read.